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Did you know that the London planetree is the most common species of tree in New York City? The fun fact is one of many which can be gleaned from a new interactive map launched by the City of New York, allowing users to explore the city’s tree population. The NYC Tree Map replaces NYC Park’s... View full entry
A drawing in [Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's] 1883 manuscript Free Space might be the first depiction of humans in orbital weightlessness. Four figures float in a spherical spaceship, each pointed in a different direction, disoriented... This basic design — primary thruster, secondary retro rockets, axial gyros for orientation — has been used by all crewed Russian and American spacecraft to date, including the International Space Station. — placesjournal.org
Looking back at the history of outer space design, Fred Scharmen brings past innovations into the present with applications for our future. Starting back in 1883 with the first design for humans in outer space (seen below), Konstantin Tsiolkovsky imagined a new way of thinking about spatial... View full entry
The Roomba robotic vacuum has been whizzing across floors for years, but its future may lie more in collecting data than dirt.
That data is of the spatial variety: the dimensions of a room as well as distances between sofas, tables, lamps and other home furnishings. To a tech industry eager to push “smart” homes controlled by a variety of Internet-enabled devices, that space is the next frontier.
— Venture Beat
Most of the available on the market 'smart home' devices, including lighting, thermostats and security cameras are still quite primitive when it comes to understanding their physical environment. All robovacs use short-range infrared or laser sensors to detect and avoid obstacles, but iRobot in... View full entry
